this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
140 points (99.3% liked)

Linux

10789 readers
973 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ategon@programming.dev
anzo@programming.dev
dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev
140
The billion dollar race to replace Windows (www.youtube.com)
submitted 16 hours ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/linux@programming.dev
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] eli@lemmy.world 24 points 15 hours ago (16 children)

The regular average joe isn't going to switch on their own. The average person sees Windows and MacBook as their two options for a laptop.

Also, Linux isn't a replacement for Windows. It's its own thing, with its own issues but also advantages.

And most young people don't have their own computers growing up anymore, it's all phones and tablets and in the USA apple has won that race.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 13 points 15 hours ago (7 children)

And most young people don’t have their own computers growing up anymore, it’s all phones and tablets and in the USA apple has won that race.

I agree full on that. Even if Linux ends up getting more marketshare on PC, PC as a whole seems to be getting less and less popular. There are people I know that dont have a PC at the house because their phones can do everything. And I do mean everything. Its wild to me thats the case, cause I use my laptop/desktop 90% of the time im online...but if an app can do it and you have less income, its a viable alternative.

Worldwide, theres more android devices regularly used than Windows (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/). And in the US, Windows has been going down in the graphs like crazy: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/united-states-of-america/#monthly-200901-202512

Just this year windows has been stable at 30-35% but thats nothing compared to what they were a decade ago. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/united-states-of-america/#monthly-202501-202512

With the RAM/SSD/compute shortage happening, I can see people:

  1. Using their existing win 10 machines for WAAAY longer than is good. 2 Switching over to iOS/MAC (cause if its expensive, might as well get something good)
  2. More and more Android/small linux devices gain traction in niche markets (like retro handhelds is almost exclusively linux)
  3. Us nerds using Linux with our old machines raging against the system slowly gaining market-share.
[–] mmmm@sopuli.xyz 6 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Us nerds using Linux with our old machines raging against the system slowly gaining market-share.

I swear the majority of us nerds using Linux have pretty new and powerful machines - sadly that hasn't ever been my case, though, but in online forums, Lemmy, Reddit, and what have you it feels like people interacting have pretty cool hardware.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

I have two ends of that spectrum:

2010 IOmega arm board network drive, loaded with headless Debian for samba, minidlna, and 256MB RAM.

And 2024 laptop with 32GB RAM and Nvidia RTX card for runing Tumbkeweed for gaming.

Both run very well

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (13 replies)